The present invention relates to a golf club head, and more particularly relates to improvement in productivity of a composite golf club head whilst maintaining necessary mechanical tenacity.
A composite golf club head is hollow in construction and made up of a plurality of shell components which are united together along their edges. Most typically, such a composite golf club head is made up of a face shell component and a rear shell component which are united together along their edges.
Although various metallic materials are usable for production, a large golf club head generally favors use of (.alpha.+.beta.) type or .beta. type titanium alloys because of their light weights and high degree of tenacities.
In production of a composite golf club head, a titanium alloy plate is first prepared by, for example, solution treatment. Then the plate is shaped by pressing into a crude shell of a required configuration. Finally, the crude shell is formed by trimming into a final shell component. Face and rear shell components so prepared are then united together along their edges to produce a hollow, composite golf club head.
(.alpha.+.beta.) type or .beta. type titanium alloys are in general very advantageous in their mechanical tenacity but disadvantageous in significant occurrence of spring back during production. In order to cover this disadvantage, it is generally employed in plastic deformation into intricate configurations to heat titanium alloy material up to a temperature in a range from 700.degree. to 900.degree. C . Introduction of such high temperature heating inevitably renders the production very complicated and, as a result, very expensive. As well known, titanium alloys, in particular the (.alpha.+.beta.) type and the .beta. type, are very expensive. Thus use of such titanium alloys undesirably boosts the total production cost of the resultant golf club head.